2008 Woodie Awards
Can there be a Jewish Aesthetic of Love?
Seductive Tones: Don Giovanni at the Met
Menachem Wecker
Issue date: 5/16/05 Section: Arts & Culture
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Don Giovanni
The Metropolitan Opera @ Lincoln Center
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Librettist: Lorenzo da Ponte
Sung in Italian with Met Titles in English
http://www.metoperafamily.org/
A 17th Century Spanish nobleman of questionable moral integrity, to say the least, Don Giovanni is literature's greatest lover. Not only is the Don a master lover, he is also a careful statistician, keeping a record of his conquests in a book, which Giovanni's servant, Leporello finds occasion to presents to a horrified Donna Elvira (one conquest), "Madamina! Il catalago e questo" ("Young Madame, here is the catalogue"). According to his record book, the Don has seduced 1,003 women in Spain alone!
So what, you wonder, is The Commentator arts staff-with its impeccable record of maintaining a level of complete adherence to and respect for the Jewish ritual laws and ideology (which effectively preclude the Don's hobby)-doing at an opera about amorous affairs and indecencies?
Just chilling, actually.
But while we are on the topic, the Don actually has a lot more to tell YU students than we might have thought. We can safely have this conversation, it turns out, since Mozart sends Giovanni down to hell at the end of the opera, escorted by the statue of the Commandatore-whom Giovanni killed at the beginning of the opera in a duel outside his house, after Giovanni has seduced (masked) the Commandatore's daughter, Donna Anna. So how did the statue end up at the good Don's house? It so happens that Giovanni invited the Commandatore's statue upon his grave (Giovanni was hiding out in the graveyard from another conquest gone sour) to dinner, and you guessed it, the dead man actually showed up. Giovanni would not repent-a pox upon his head-and landed himself an usher to damnation and hellfire, the wonderful rewards, it would seem, that Mozart felt were in store for all evil people.
What can all of this have to do with Orthodox Judaism, which in its modern manifestation tends to downplay the libido at all costs? Let us take a few examples. Rahab, the brave woman who quartered the two spies Joshua sent to scout out Jericho, held the day job of prostitute. Hosea the prophet married Gomer the prostitute. The matchmaker? God Himself. Samson had a rendezvous with a prostitute in Gaza, pre-Delilah, and Tamar seduced Judah "at the wayside." Ruth and Boaz had an encounter in the threshing house that would leave many upset. Song of Songs offers a ripe meditation on love-the healthy spiritual kind-and many passages from Psalms seem almost Shakespearean in their meditation on deep emotions and longing. In fact, the Don and his escapades remind me of many of the legal responsa of Italian Jewry in the early Modern period.
The Metropolitan Opera @ Lincoln Center
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Librettist: Lorenzo da Ponte
Sung in Italian with Met Titles in English
http://www.metoperafamily.org/
A 17th Century Spanish nobleman of questionable moral integrity, to say the least, Don Giovanni is literature's greatest lover. Not only is the Don a master lover, he is also a careful statistician, keeping a record of his conquests in a book, which Giovanni's servant, Leporello finds occasion to presents to a horrified Donna Elvira (one conquest), "Madamina! Il catalago e questo" ("Young Madame, here is the catalogue"). According to his record book, the Don has seduced 1,003 women in Spain alone!
So what, you wonder, is The Commentator arts staff-with its impeccable record of maintaining a level of complete adherence to and respect for the Jewish ritual laws and ideology (which effectively preclude the Don's hobby)-doing at an opera about amorous affairs and indecencies?
Just chilling, actually.
But while we are on the topic, the Don actually has a lot more to tell YU students than we might have thought. We can safely have this conversation, it turns out, since Mozart sends Giovanni down to hell at the end of the opera, escorted by the statue of the Commandatore-whom Giovanni killed at the beginning of the opera in a duel outside his house, after Giovanni has seduced (masked) the Commandatore's daughter, Donna Anna. So how did the statue end up at the good Don's house? It so happens that Giovanni invited the Commandatore's statue upon his grave (Giovanni was hiding out in the graveyard from another conquest gone sour) to dinner, and you guessed it, the dead man actually showed up. Giovanni would not repent-a pox upon his head-and landed himself an usher to damnation and hellfire, the wonderful rewards, it would seem, that Mozart felt were in store for all evil people.
What can all of this have to do with Orthodox Judaism, which in its modern manifestation tends to downplay the libido at all costs? Let us take a few examples. Rahab, the brave woman who quartered the two spies Joshua sent to scout out Jericho, held the day job of prostitute. Hosea the prophet married Gomer the prostitute. The matchmaker? God Himself. Samson had a rendezvous with a prostitute in Gaza, pre-Delilah, and Tamar seduced Judah "at the wayside." Ruth and Boaz had an encounter in the threshing house that would leave many upset. Song of Songs offers a ripe meditation on love-the healthy spiritual kind-and many passages from Psalms seem almost Shakespearean in their meditation on deep emotions and longing. In fact, the Don and his escapades remind me of many of the legal responsa of Italian Jewry in the early Modern period.
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